A Seasons Waltz
by Ellana-san
Summary: One morning, two weeks or so after their return to Twelve, Haymitch stumbled out of his house, his head still heavy and fuzzy from the entire bottle he had downed the previous night, and the air had lost that crisp icy chill that often made him turn up the collar of his coat. Spring had come. HAYFFIE SUMMER WEEK 2019 DAY1


_Hayffie weeeeeeeek is here! And we kick start it with Day 1: It's Summer Already! (and it's a bit huge because it got away from me, it always goes away from me)._

* * *

_**A Seasons Waltz**_

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**Spring**

* * *

One morning, two weeks or so after their return to Twelve, Haymitch stumbled out of his house, his head still heavy and fuzzy from the entire bottle he had downed the previous night, and the air had lost that crisp icy chill that often made him turn up the collar of his coat. He tightened the belt of his dressing gown with one hand and clutched his small cup of coffee with the other, leaning against the porch's old wooden railing that threatened to give in.

Spring had come.

It didn't smell any different than before but spring in Twelve hardly ever did. Before, it had meant coal powder would fly more lightly on the wind and that you were more susceptible to get the cough. Now, he would have exchanged the perpetual reek from the devastated town for coal powder any day.

They had made a lot of progress unburying bodies but carrion birds were still circling overhead and what used to be the town was still, for all intents and purposes, an open mass grave. The chemical fire had long burned down but its particular smell still remained like a fizzle at the back of the tongue, something unnatural and potent that made you want to cough when you got too close to one of the charred building.

The others had asked for Haymitch's help with the bodies and the rebuilding, of course. They had asked all the able men to help. But Haymitch couldn't bring himself to do it. He couldn't bring himself to step out of his house most days. The sight of the destroyed town was unbearable to him. He felt responsible. He felt each and every of the dead corpses beneath the stones were there because of him, because he hadn't thought far enough ahead, because he had naively thought the Capitol wouldn't go _that _far…

The trek to the girl's house was already complicated for him and, more often than not, it was Sae who came to inform him of her progress – or lack of therefore. She was still lying on the couch, staring into nothing, lost in thoughts that couldn't have been nice. The last time he had convinced himself to visit, she had been asleep and he had entertained the thought of just dropping her in the bathtub because she really was starting to smell bad. Worse than _he_ did, which was saying something.

Warily, he took a few steps down the stairs until he was standing in his overgrown front yard, clutching the precious cup of coffee with shaky fingers. Supply shipments weren't reliable yet, they were repairing the railway but that was taking time – or so Plutarch told him – and coffee was a luxury still for now. The version they shared in Twelve was the same he remembered from his childhood when they could afford it: weak and watered down.

He took a sip of it all the same, digging his bare toes in the dry dirt outside with some childish pleasure. The coffee didn't give him the kick he needed. It tasted so bland that it made a lump appear in his throat because his first thought upon drinking it was that Effie would hate it to the point she might even spit it out, manners be damned. There was hardly anything she held more sacred that her morning coffee and she liked it bitter and dark. Like her men, she used to joke.

He closed his eyes, offered his face to the soft breeze and took a long deep breath to cleanse his thoughts off her. Not that it was that easy. Or possible. But she had made her wishes crystal clear when she had slammed the door in his face. He had told her to come if she changed her mind but he doubted she would. She was stubborn. The only woman who could out-stubborn him probably. And it wasn't like he didn't deserve it. He had used her, abused her, failed her when it counted and hadn't hesitated one second to volunteer to go back to Twelve for Katniss when he knew for certain it meant leaving her behind again even though she needed him.

He missed her.

He _fucking_ missed her.

He slowly made his way back inside, headed straight for the kitchen, counted the bottles that were left on the counter… How long before the next supply shipment arrived? A week? Two? He would need to seriously ration himself if he wanted to make it. Which meant he needed to stop thinking about what he had left behind in the Capitol – _who_ he had left behind – because it was hard enough to keep the usual demons at bay with so little liquid courage.

The changes in the weather were gradual.

Soon, green tufts of grass started appearing between cracks in the dry earth. The dead weeds in his front and back yards, crisped from the frost, seemed to find a second breath of life. The old wisteria plant started its slow creep over the side of his house again and Haymitch watched its progress with displeasure. Every year he cut it before it could fully bloom, every year it crawled back out, determined to make his house look a little charming; Haymitch didn't want a charming house.

Plants started creeping over the ruins in town and they had to hurry and reclaim the stones before vegetation swallowed them. Most of the bodies had been found and laid to rest in the meadow but the carrions made room for the flies. There were _flies_ everywhere and everyone knew why. There were birds too. And small animals poking their heads out of their dens and blinking at the sun… Buttercup found a new habit of sneaking into his living-room so every morning he would find the cat sprawled in a puddle of sunlight. He wasn't sure Katniss had realized he had come back yet or bothered feeding him – she was barely feeding _herself_ – so he took the purring for the threat it was and left scraps for him but never tried to pet him. The claws looked sharp.

He watched the changes taking their course, spring slowly but surely chasing winter away, and he felt the familiar bouts of anguish deep in his stomach because spring meant a new Reaping and a new Reaping meant more dead kids.

Rationally, he _knew_ there would be no more Reaping. That it was over and done with. But a part of him couldn't quite accept it and kept waiting for the last week-end of spring when it was traditionally held. _Dreading_ it like he did every year. _Wishing _it would come quicker because it meant Effie would show up at his house with veiled insults on her painted lips. _Despising _himself because he wanted to _fuck_ her so badly some part of him was actually impatient for the day to come.

Peeta arrived with the first blooms of flowers.

Plutarch called ahead to warn him to expect the hovercraft with supplies and the boy along with them. He didn't ask if Peeta would have an escort and he didn't question it when the kid walked out of that hovercraft alone. If he stared at the empty mouth of the vehicle a little longer or harder than necessary, nobody noticed. He hugged Peeta tight, the relief at finally having him back was enough to bring tears to his eyes that he blinked away before the kid could see them.

Plutarch had kept him appraised of his progress, of course, but he hadn't been there for the boy as much as he had wanted to in the last few weeks. That had been someone's else prerogative. It had felt a little fitting somehow that Effie would stay to take care of the boy while he went to take care of the girl but he had hoped…

"All better now?" he asked, clasping the boy's shoulder to distract himself from his treacherous thoughts.

"As much as I can be." Peeta shrugged with a sheepish smile. "How's Katniss?" Haymitch's face fell a little and it was probably all the answer the kid needed because the boy nodded knowingly. "It's alright. We'll help her."

And just like that, it was decided.

And just like that, the boy made it happen.

He didn't understand _shit_ about their dandelion analogy, all he knew was that once Peeta was back in the Village, Katniss seemed to find some sort of balance. She was still prone to bouts of nostalgia and apathy but no more than was expected. She went hunting, she laughed sometimes, she helped Haymitch cook when it was his turn to make dinner – because the kids insisted they _should _have dinner together every day – she leaned into Peeta's side more and more… He wasn't actually surprised when he caught them kissing under a tree in the girl's backyard.

The weather warmed up.

The flies infestation was finally brought under control.

They finished clearing the town's ruins.

The new railway tracks were fitted and trains came back and forth once a week, bringing more workers and more refugees back. Supplies were still irregular but the whole country was suffering from it, that was an aftereffect of the war.

The last week-end of spring was slowly approaching.

Haymitch started drinking more heavily.

The children didn't make any comment, not even Peeta. They didn't ask either. There was an odd tension in the air on the eve of what would have been Reaping Day, an old terror that was impossible to ignore. The whole District seemed to be holding its breath.

And yet the next day came and with it no train branded with the Capitol sigil, no Peacekeepers reminded everyone to gather up in the square at noon sharp, no escort invaded his house to pester him into a shower, a haircut and clean clothes…

The children showed up to have breakfast with him, which wasn't at all the norm. He got up far much later than either of them. He appreciated the company anyway. Katniss was nervous. She couldn't sit still. When her fingers weren't drumming on the wooden table, she was pacing the length of the room back and forth under the thin excuse of fetching more tea. Peeta was contemplative in a way that didn't bode well. Haymitch was wary of him having an episode and so he didn't protest when the kid quietly excused himself to go paint in his basement. Katniss left soon after him to head to the woods.

Haymitch remained alone in his kitchen and poured himself drink upon drink that he sipped slowly. Countless Reapings were flashing by in his mind. Some were more blurry than others because he had been drunker. Some of the tributes' faces were blurry too.

His eyes were on the clock when the big needle struck twelve and, somehow, he wasn't surprised his phone started ringing, almost as if he had been waiting for it.

"Hello." he said in a softer voice than he usually used.

There was no answer at the other end of the line, just a gentle breathing that was as familiar to him as his own. He leaned against the wall, closed his eyes, and listened.

He was certain of how long it lasted because when he glanced up at the clock, it was a quarter past noon. She would be wrapping up the Reaping by then. Twenty minutes was as long as it took.

When it was over…

When it would _have been _over, he heard her lick her lips. There was an odd clicking sound and he wondered if she was drinking too.

"Do you remember them all?" she asked.

It was the first words he had heard her say in months and he wished they were different. _I miss you_, he wanted to scream back. _I'm fucking using lavender detergent just because it makes my sheets smell like you_. _Please come home I'm useless without you_.

"I remember everything." he answered.

That was their curse.

No amount of alcohol or sleeping pills or sex had ever been able to erase the striking face of a child who knew they were about to die.

It wasn't all he remembered though.

He remembered the softness of her skin, the taste of her lips, the comforting embrace she would wrap him in when he was too drunk and too clingy to know better… Most of all, he remembered all the times she had tried to tell him she loved him and all the times he had scorned at her and belittled her for it. How she had grounded him, kept him together, when all he had wanted was to crumble in a thousand pieces.

"How are the children?" she asked next, a forced fake cheer in her voice.

"Better." He sighed. "Some days are easier than others. You should come and see for yourself."

It was a clumsy attempt. Before the war, she would have giggled and played it coy. Right then, she sucked in a breath as if he had hit her straight in the plexus.

"How are you?" she asked next.

It was progress, he told himself, that she hadn't hung up on him yet. She had vowed to never talk to him or see him again before he had left the city, when she had slammed that door on his face. And yet she had called him. She hadn't hung up yet. She…

"Miserable." he deadpanned. "Ain't that the point?" He couldn't control the sarcasm or the bitterness in his voice and he closed his eyes, banged his head against the wall once. "When will I have been punished enough, sweetheart?"

There was a long silence at the other end of the line, so long he almost thought she was gone.

"Goodbye, Haymitch." She whispered.

Then there was a click and she _was _gone and he cursed himself to hell and back for having scared her away, for having butchered it up like he always did…

When the kids found him that night, he was passed out and his carefully rationed stock of alcohol was all gone.

He threw up on Katniss twice.

She dumped him in his bathtub and turned the cold water on. She didn't understand why he laughed so much and his slurred explanations that he had toyed with the idea of doing it to her went misunderstood.

It wasn't that funny anyway.

°O°O°O°O°

The first day of spring in the Capitol passed without the traditional fanfare it always brought and, like most of her fellow citizens, it left Effie feeling at a loss. Usually, on the first day of spring, a countdown started on Main Square, ticking the months, weeks, days, minutes and seconds off to the next Reaping. People started getting excited for the next games, Gamemakers promised an even more grandiose spectacle and everyone speculated on arenas and what victors would mentor that year. There were interviews and TV shows and themed parties…

Effie didn't regret the lack of Games but she couldn't help but feel bereft without the structure the Games had brought to her life.

On the first day of spring, she usually started planning her Reaping outfit. She visited shops, interviewed stylists, took advantage of all that shopping to order Haymitch's new wardrobe of the year, bought wigs and shoes and accessories… Anything to be the best dressed escort out there.

On that crisp spring morning, drizzle splattered the bay window in her living-room, making the tiny people walking in the newly rebuilt streets blurry and grey. Somehow, she couldn't help but think it was fitting. Everything in her life seemed grey and blurry at the moment.

She took a drag of her cigarette, staring at the unfamiliar city like she did for most of the day lately. The rebuilding had been a quick affair because the Capitol was still at the heart of the country, the destroyed sectors had been cordoned and hastily brought back up, the bombs craters had been quickly filled with cement… All the technology available had been used to make the city new again.

Sometimes, she thought it was _too _new. She got lost more often than not every time she ventured out. Things were not where she expected them to be, there were new streets, new avenues, new shops, new statues… The style itself wasn't even really _Capitol _anymore. The vertiginous skyscrapers were still there but the new buildings had a distinct _District_ feel to them. The people in the streets had a distinct _District_ feel to them too.

Being Capitol wasn't in fashion anymore and only the most resilient – or brave – went out with bright colors nowadays, never mind wigs or cosmetic alterations. The days after the Capitol's surrender were still too fresh for the citizens not to remember the bloodbaths that had taken place in the streets. People dressed in wash-out colors now and called it fashion, _District chic, _they wore their hair in natural colors – not quite so _natural _as dyed but nothing eccentric. And as a consequence, the world of bright colors she had known all her life had turned just as grey and bland as her nightmares.

It didn't help.

She had rebelled by dying her hair a vivid shade of bubblegum pink. She had thought it would cheer her up. It hadn't.

Spring promised to be a sad affair.

The sun never showed up. It kept on raining for days, mostly because, as she understood it, the controlled weather system had been relegated to a storage room since it took too much power and had been labeled _unnecessary _by officials in charge. The weather was bound to be a little capricious for a while, the forecast anchor had warned on the news. Mother nature asserting her rights.

Not that Effie really cared.

She didn't care for much.

She spent most of her days smocking next to her window, dwelling on things she couldn't change, feeling lonely and miserable and despising herself for not being able to do something about it. Like calling Haymitch. She _could _have called Haymitch. He might have made a few gibes or even taunted her but he would have also asked her to come to Twelve again and this time perhaps she would have said yes.

She toyed with the idea.

She toyed with the idea every day.

Living in Twelve sounded dreadful, all the more so with the destruction he had described, but living in the city wasn't much better anymore. Not only was it so different from what she remembered but the Capitol had become a sad place. A sad _very expensive_ place. She was lucky to have an apartment in her name, luckier still to not need much food to survive. She knew a few people who had been forced to relocate to one of the cheaper Districts because life had just become _that_ hard. The government did what it could, she supposed, but a war was costly and there was simply no more money.

She toyed with the idea of calling Haymitch, yes, but she never did. Thinking about it was like probing at a still aching wound just to check if it still hurt: something you knew was stupid but that you kept doing anyway in the off chance it would work.

The wound still hurt.

After the war… After she had been rescued from that cell, after she had finally found her sanity back, after Haymitch had negotiated her full pardon and she had been released from the hospital… She had thought they had been building something. She hadn't been angry with him then, despite his own obvious guilt about what had happened to her. She had needed him too much. She had needed him to hold her after the nightmares, to coax her through her panic attacks, to remind her flashbacks were just that… It had all been so different… Being allowed to share a room with him properly, being allowed to sleep curled up against him at night, being allowed to openly care for him… Even the sex had been different. Tentative on his part at first and then slow and tender…

She had felt _loved_.

She had felt loved and after Katniss had killed Coin, after they had moved back to her apartment while the trial was going on, she had thought they were building a life together, she had thought… It wasn't entirely his fault, of course. It was Aster Everdeen who was responsible. If she hadn't run away to Four, Haymitch wouldn't have been forced to become the girl's guardian and…

But that was all moot because Haymitch was gone and she was terribly angry at the injustice of it. She was tired of always having to give up everything, of being the one who was sacrificed for the greater good. Haymitch never put her first. It was unfair to accuse him of that because, given the choice, she would probably have put the children first too but she couldn't help the resentment. It had been building for thirteen years. She had never been a priority to him. She was always an afterthought.

She visited Peeta at the clinic every two days. She attended therapy sessions when his doctor asked her to, dodged any question about how _she _was doing with her own trauma… She took care of the boy because the boy was all she had left. She put make-up on for him, wore bright clothes that attracted glares in the streets, smiled and laughed on command… Peeta was doing so much better and she couldn't help but be happy for him.

Of course, it also made her a little sad. She knew that the better he got, the sooner he would leave.

A month into that rainy spring, she was told Peeta was ready to go home. The boy was excited but a bit frightened, unsure that he would manage to control himself without the clinic and the team of specialists…

"You can call me." Effie promised as she helped him pack his bag. "You can _always_ call me."

Peeta flashed her a smile with genuine affection and reached for her hand, stopping her from properly folding a shirt he had already placed in the bag. "Why don't you come with me? I'm worried about leaving you here. People…" He shook his head. "People aren't nice to you. I don't think it will change anytime soon."

The mask slipped on before she could even think about it. A cheerful laugh, an open happy expression, a bright dazzling smile… "Nonsense. All my friends are here. My family is here."

It wasn't a lie. Even though none of her former friends would take her calls or acknowledge they even knew her. As for her family… Her sister hated her guts and couldn't stand the sight of her. She blamed her for the death of her husband because, for her family, Effie had been involved with the rebels and could have stopped the execution of Lyssa's Gamemaker husband if she had so wished. It didn't matter that Effie herself had barely escaped execution, they refused to accept the truth. Unsurprisingly, her parents had taken Lyssa's side.

She couldn't pretend she wasn't tempted by the boy's offer as she sat in the back of the car Plutarch had sent to the clinic though. Would Haymitch welcome her if she just showed up? Or would he understandably be upset with her? Where would she live? Would he let her share his house like they had shared her apartment for a couple of months? Or would he tell her to find her own place because he valued his privacy too much? Twelve was a frightening unknown. Too frightening.

The devil you knew was preferable to the devil you didn't know and, right then, she knew the Capitol far much better.

Plutarch met them on the hovercraft landing field, with two assistants in tow. The Secretary of Communication was a busy man nowadays. He exchanged a few words with the boy, hugged him and then ushered him up onboard. Peeta embraced her tight before getting on the hovercraft. He didn't say anything, probably because he didn't trust himself enough to talk. She didn't either. There was a lump in her throat and burning tears in her eyes that she hastily blinked away by forcing a smile.

"Take care of yourself." she whispered, planting a quick kiss on his cheek.

Oh, but she loved that boy… She didn't think she could have loved him more if he had been her own.

"You too." Peeta pleaded right back, squeezing her hand.

A small smile and then he took a deep breath, grabbed his bag and climbed on the hovercraft. She stood there and watched until the ship was gone. Plutarch stood with her until they couldn't see it anymore, then the Secretary of Communications turned to her, his eyes darting to her pink hair with something that wasn't _quite _disapproval but was certainly not amused either.

"You look lovely, if I may say so." Plutarch gallantly offered. "However… Aren't you afraid that your hairstyle might be seen as a little too… _Snow conservationist_?"

She didn't even bat an eyelash at the accusation. "I am the last living escort. My very existence is controversial, I hardly think my hair color will matter in the grand scheme of things."

The former Head Gamemaker watched her for a long time and Effie held his stare, refusing to be cowed. They were the last of their kinds, the two of them. The only escort and the only Gamemaker left. Although their circumstances couldn't have been more different… Plutarch was the hero when she was the villain.

"There are… _things_ in the work." He finally sighed. "I am doing my best but I am not entirely sure I will be able to spare you. Come find me if you need anything, dear."

With that mysterious warning, he turned around and walked back to his car and his impatient assistants.

Without Peeta to visit and take care of, her days were empty.

She smoked too much, relied too heavily on sleeping pills she was now pretty sure she couldn't have done without and didn't eat enough.

A week and a half after Peeta's departure, it finally stopped raining. She hadn't realized how much she had missed the sun until it started shining again. She went out for long walks, got reacquainted with the city, ignored the stares and the glares, the insults and the people spitting at her feet.

There was no huge countdown on Main Square but it didn't matter because she kept count in her head. She felt the same familiar impatience and anguish at the approach of Reaping Day as she did every year. She couldn't quite believe she wouldn't be sentencing two children to death that year.

She wasn't the only one who viewed the looming day with apprehension. The Capitol portion of the city's population talked about organizing a huge party in the park on the day the Reaping would have taken place, the District portion of the city's population screamed in outrage at the proposal, saying it should have been a day of remembrance and not a day of celebration.

The debate lasted for weeks.

Effie missed all of it because two weeks after Peeta had left, someone knocked on her door a little after dawn and her whole life was turned upside down. A Capitol man in a suit thrust a paper in her hands and then Peacekeepers forced her away from the doorframe and her apartment was invaded with people with work overalls, more Peacekeepers and what she supposed to be government officials.

She didn't understand everything because her ears were ringing and she couldn't stop staring at the Peacekeepers who threateningly stopped her from doing anything else than scream her incomprehension. When she finally collapsed on the floor, unable to breathe, unable to _think_, only certain that she would be grabbed and tossed in prison again, nobody moved a finger to help…

They kept on inspecting every little thing in her apartment, labeling baubles, artwork and furniture with little colored stickers that were meant to indicate a price range.

She had to fight through the panic attack by herself. She had to pick herself up from the floor, leaving her dignity there, and _beg _to be allowed to get dressed… The Capitol man in a suit wasn't unsympathetic once she had calmed herself enough to read through the papers properly. The government was seizing _everything _she owned as compensation for her war crimes. The apartment, anything of substantial value in it, her bank accounts… He told her she wasn't the only one who would wake up rough that morning, that they were targeting any considerable fortune related to the Games industry that had escaped the purge, that they needed the money, that she should call her lawyer and see what could be done…

She didn't know how to explain that her lawyer wouldn't take her calls any longer because nobody wanted to be seen with the last living escort. She didn't know how she would have paid him anyway.

In the end, she was kicked out of her apartment with a small suitcase and several plastic bags. There were very few clothes in the suitcase because her wardrobe was full of haute-couture and furs and there was little deemed cheap enough to be given away. She had been allowed to keep her photo albums, her meds, a few keepsakes that were worthless, her toiletry bag and all the cash she had had in her wallet. She had asked for her grandfather's violin and had been denied.

When she emerged from her apartment building for the last time, she threw up and sat down on the pavement, dazed and panicked.

She didn't know where to go or what to do and she refused to cry. Already, there was a crowd forming and she hastily picked herself back up, pushed through the gawking people and fled before a journalist could snatch a picture of her sitting in the gutter.

She went to Plutarch in the end because she didn't know what else to do. He had tried to warn her, hadn't he? The former Gamemaker greeted her somberly, ushered her in his dining-room with her suitcase and her plastic bags and made her some tea. He had already found her a job, he announced, and she realized he must have known it had been coming for a very long time. A more specific warning might have been appreciated, she mused, she could have secreted money away. He would have taken her on as an assistant, he claimed, but… _But nobody wanted her associated to the new government, _he didn't say.

That was how she ended up working as a secretary in a second zone modeling agency, a job she was vastly overqualified for not to mention _humiliated _by, renting a one room apartment with the smallest bathroom in existence.

The weather turned sour again. She had never seen a spring that gloomy. But, then again, she had never lived in a hovel before either. The building gave her the chills. There were five apartments on each landing, people were _crammed _into them… Some of her neighbors were destitute Capitols like her, others came from Districts and were trying their luck in the city…

She hated it.

She hated everything about it.

She couldn't afford the food, the sleeping pills and cigarettes if she wanted to pay the rent each month so she made a choice and prioritized pills and cigarettes. Sometimes, she treated herself to a bottle of hard liquor and mixed glasses with pills, telling herself she wasn't actually _trying_ to kill herself but that it wouldn't be so bad if she _did_.

The closest they got to Reaping Day, the worst it was.

She couldn't help but _think _about what she should have been doing, about the glittering parties and the sumptuous feasts and the people begging for her attention…

On Reaping Day, she called in sick. At the time the Reaping would have started, she dialed a number she knew by heart.

"_Hello_." he answered almost immediately, as if he had been waiting for her call. For _her_.

She couldn't say anything. There was a lump in her throat and the sound of his voice after so long… She wanted to wrap herself in the sound of his voice, to wrap herself in _him_… She closed her eyes and listened to the sound of his breathing and tried not to think that she would have preferred to be standing on a stage a thousand times to standing there in her decrepit kitchen. A Reaping would have meant more dead children and yet a part of her was fairly sure she would have exchanged that knowledge against her previous life of leisure.

She was a bad person.

She deserved what she had gotten.

"Do you remember them all?" she asked softly when the blinking numbers on the oven told her the show would have been over.

There was a soft exhale at the other end of the line. She could imagine him so perfectly. He would be cradling a glass in his hand, his hair disheveled and dirty, his shirt probably frayed at the cuffs…

"_I remember everything."_

There was a world of unsaid things in that statement.

She asked after the children because she didn't want to hang up yet but she was a little afraid that if she kept going she would blurt out everything. The fact that she was living in little more than a shack, the fact that her boss like to pat her ass when she walked by him, the fact that she missed him so much she couldn't breathe…

"How are you?" she asked next, almost tentatively.

"_Miserable_." he deadpanned. "_Ain't that the point? When will I have been punished enough, sweetheart?" _

The accusation left her reeling.

Was she punishing him? Or was she punishing herself?

They were both miserable… They were both…

"Goodbye, Haymitch." she whispered before he could convince her to forgive him. He had always been very good at making her forgive him.

She hung up and she clenched her jaw against the tears rolling down her cheeks.

She took too many sleeping pills and she drank too much but she only succeeded in making herself sick. There was no oblivion and there was no end to the nightmare.

* * *

**Summer**

* * *

It was Haymitch's first summer in Twelve in twenty-six years and he had forgotten how warm afternoons often ended in chilly evenings. Twelve wasn't the Capitol and the weather wasn't controlled to be the perfect mix of hot but not too hot.

It was strange to be there in summer, to watch children laugh in their swimming suits as they raced to the closest stream, to listen to the songs of grasshoppers and cicada in the hot evenings, to breathe in the almost intoxicating smell of the woods behind his house blooming with life… Stranger still not to go to parties every night, not to hide from people who absolutely wanted to talk to him, not to worry about children he had no hope to save, not to do crazy stupid stuff to distract himself from that sad fact…

He couldn't admit to himself that he missed the city because he had hated his time there but maybe, _maybe_, a part of him was willing to admit he missed _his friends_. Chaff, Finnick, Johanna, Beetee… Even Brutus and the rest of the Careers pack… He missed the other victors, missed the shared connection only years spent in the Hunger Games could forge…

He missed Chaff most of all, if he was honest.

There had never been any time to process his death. There had been more urgent concerns in the wake of the arena exploding and Haymitch hadn't wanted to linger on it. But summer was usually their time. They cursed the Games to hell and back, visited clubs and bars, got drunk, played chess, flirted with women, laughed, complained about their lives and cursed Snow with every breath… Chaff's death was finally sinking in and Haymitch hated the bitter taste it left in his mouth.

He had already called Jo twice under the flimsy excuse of checking on Annie and the kid but if Johanna was suffering from the same sense of loss he was, she was hiding it better. She didn't seem to care that her days weren't dictated by the Games routine, that there were no schedules to follow or friends to run away with.

His thoughts were gloomy and it showed so he wasn't particularly surprised the kids tried to distract him from them. They were good kids. And when it didn't work and he kept drinking his meager supplies too fast, they _forced _him to get out and do stuff he really didn't want to do.

Like help with the rebuilding.

He wasn't an architect and he had zero clue how to work in construction but he could follow instructions and he had a natural strength that the other refuges were only too happy to put to work. He was particularly good at destroying what was left of the old ruins, give him time and a hammer and he flattened the place. Peeta dragged him to town at least twice a week to help fix a house or a shop or whatever it was they were working on that day.

Twelve was slowly but surely rising from its ashes.

Often, he ended up shirtless, sunburned and exhausted.

Those were the best days.

Sometimes, he ended up slamming the hammer too hard, panting and screaming his rage at already half-crumbled walls that needed to go. On those days, Peeta usually had to coax the hammer out of his hands. He was the only one who dared approach him. Everyone else knew to give him a wide berth.

The kids weren't the only unstable victors in Twelve, Haymitch had just years of practice at hiding it behind a drink and a self-deprecating joke.

People gossiped of course.

But, predictably enough, the three of them didn't talk about it.

They didn't talk about Haymitch's outbursts.

They didn't talk about Peeta's occasional episodes.

They didn't talk about the fact Katniss disappeared for hours in the woods and came back with her eyes reddish from too much crying.

They went on because they had to. They survived. That was what they did best.

They survived.

On a hot afternoon, sitting on a recently half-built wall, his shirt drenched in sweat, Haymitch tilted his head to the glaring sun and wondered at which point someone would finally get tired of _surviving_. He _was_ tired. But never enough to properly give up. Giving up would be a slap in the face of everyone he had loved and lost. And yet… He was tired of surviving, he wanted to _live_. It didn't seem like much of a leap between the two but he knew the difference. With surviving, every breath was a fight and a bitter victory; with living, life was actually worth taking a breath for.

It was a bad day. One of those bad days when he had spent half the time reducing any pile of rubbles in sight to dust instead of actually helping in the rebuilding effort. The hammer had slipped from his blistered fingers at some point and it now laid at his feet. He toed it with his scrapped boot, just enough to push it a few inches in the dirt…

The workers closest to him called out a break. One of them took pity on him and offered a cigarette that he accepted with a joke about preferring liquor. The guy laughed and left, a little ill-at-ease. People were _never _quite at ease with him, not like before he had won his Games. Twelve refugees or not, he was still a victor and, thus, he was still remote from the rest of the population. He would always be. He took a drag, breathing the smell of cheap tobacco. He hated smoking, had never really got the hang of it, the pleasure some of his friends derived from it. It offered no oblivion and, as such, it had never really interested him.

The taste was wrong too.

It didn't taste like…

"Do you really need another bad habit?" Peeta sighed, dropping on the half wall next to him. The boy stretched his bad leg in front of him and Haymitch didn't need to ask to know the prosthetic must have been hurting him. They didn't talk about that either. Like they didn't talk about Katniss' loss of hearing in her left ear. High tech prosthetics and earring implants were all well and good but it didn't take the realities of the injuries away, it just alleviated them.

He shrugged. "Reminds me of old friends, is all."

He didn't let himself think about _her_. She always smoked the most expensive brands – and she _wasn't _a smoker, of course not, it was just occasional, something she only did when she was stressed, something she could quit whenever she wanted exactly like their affair or so she used to joke…

Chaff had smoked too early in their friendship. And then, later, he had still borrowed the occasional cigarette from their respective escorts – although he hated asking Summercket because she only smoked menthol cigarettes and that was apparently _bad_; probably the one thing Eleven's victor and Effie Trinket had ever agreed on.

"You ever do something just 'cause it reminds you of someone?" he asked the boy.

His mind wasn't on Chaff, not at that moment, but he pretended really hard it was.

He had called her, after the Reaping, once he had been sobered enough – too sober even, almost in withdrawals – but her phone had been disconnected. She must have changed number. He couldn't help but think it was so he couldn't reach her, so she was finally free of him.

"I bake." Peeta answered calmly.

Haymitch nodded because it made sense.

The kid's family may not have been the best but they were still family. He could understand that.

He took another drag and then dropped the half-consumed cigarette on the ground and crushed it under his boot. The smell and the taste were wrong. There was not a hint of Effie Trinket there.

He would have better luck burying his face in his lavender scented pillow like the pathetic lovesick drunkard he was.

"Effie called." the boy added after a beat in what seemed to be a very careful tone to him.

"Yeah?" Haymitch asked, aiming for detached. His mouth was parched though and his shifting eyes probably gave away his interest. "How's she?"

"She found a new job in a modeling agency." Peeta said, still sounding cautious. The boy was watching him too, looking for… _something_. "She moved apartments too. She says she's starting over."

His jaw clenched and he stood up, picking up the hammer. "Good for her. She deserves… She deserves a fresh start."

Peeta kept watching him when he started hitting what was left of the ruins with reckless abandon.

He had known she wanted to move on. He had known. Then, why did it hurt so much?

There wasn't an inch of his body that wasn't sore by the time he and the boy made the long trek back to the Victors Village.

"I'm not sure she's happy." Peeta told him quietly once they had crossed the iron wrought gates. Haymitch didn't ask if he meant Katniss because it was so obvious he did _not_. He remained silent and the boy tossed him a slightly frustrated look. "I think she's only pretending not to worry us."

"Fake it 'till you make it." he finally mumbled back before disappearing into his house.

That had always been Effie's way of life.

His also maybe, except in his case it was called _denial_.

He toyed with the idea of taking a train to the Capitol that night, while he nursed a glass of moonshine. He toyed with it until the very early hours of morning, imagining it, picturing it… In his head, she always raged and screamed right up until he kissed her to shut her up, like before… Then, she stopped being too angry to kiss back and then they ended up in bed and then they talked, _actually _talked exactly like he hated, and they decided to give themselves a shot.

But those were fantasies better left to the night, silly dreams that he should have outgrown a long time ago. In the morning, he dragged himself to his bedroom and crashed on his bed to grab a few hours of fistful sleep. He wouldn't take a train to the city. He wouldn't do that to her. She didn't want to see him. She didn't want him. Not anymore. And he couldn't blame her.

By the end of summer, Twelve looked more like a proper town and less like a charnel house.

People had started leaving the Village to go back to the newly built Seam, shops had re-opened and there was even a small market on Sundays on the Square in front of the still in construction Justice Building. Supplies were still few and spare but people sold and bought what they could and traded the rest.

Haymitch liked market day because it reminded him of the Hob. There was talk of rebuilding that too except it would be less black market and more of a shopping area. It would be different, like everything else in the District, and he missed the unique vibe of the old Hob with its dusty alleys and its wobbly stands.

He stood next to the girl with his hands buried in his pockets, a little bored, while she negotiated whatever the boy needed to make more fresh paint. Peeta had stayed home that day, nursing a headache he dreaded meant an upcoming episode, and Katniss was hoping to cheer him up with new paint pigments.

His grey eyes surveyed the rest of the square, passing over stands with meager goods, stopping on one full of shiny fabrics that made him think of… He shut down that line of thoughts quickly and turned his attention to another booth, a closer one, where a man had geese in a big cage. He was selling eggs, feathers and, Haymitch figured, for a high enough price, the animals themselves as food.

Without really thinking about it, he wandered closer. Katniss tossed him a look when he left her side but went back to her own conversation without a word.

There were a sad looking gander and three geese weakly honking their displeasure. The cage was too small, there was no water and the hay was spare.

"Are you interested, sir?" the man behind the booth immediately harangued him when he saw him looking. "Delicate meat. The best."

"They don't look well." he commented, peering at the animal inside the cage. The gander flicked his wings aggressively – or defensively it was hard to say – but he didn't have enough room to spread them and he only ended up knocking his fellow prisoners over.

The birds looked unfed, not well-cared for.

"They're perfectly healthy!" the man protested, looking around as if to make sure nobody else had heard. Bad for business, Haymitch figured. "Listen here… If you're trying to weasel a better price from me by insinuating…"

"I'm gonna take them all." he said before he could think twice about it.

He refused to think it was because he had met the gander's eyes and the bird had looked powerless and desperate. Birds didn't look powerless and desperate. That was projecting.

He refused to think, also, about a long forgotten project of one day raising geese for a living. That had been his brother's dream. Escape the mines. Get a farm somehow. Start with geese and poultry because they were the cheapest and then expand…

The guy looked at him as if he was crazy but was only too happy to thrust the heavy cage in his hands once Haymitch had taken enough notes out of his wallet. Not a lot of people could still afford to spend that much in cash.

"We're having a party I don't know about?" Katniss mocked when she joined him, her bag full of whatever ingredients the boy needed to crush into paint.

He held the cage a little more protectively.

"They're not to eat." he grumbled.

Her eyebrows shot up. "What are you gonna do with three geese and a gander if you're not going to cook them?"

He shrugged because he hadn't thought that far. "Eat fresh eggs every morning?"

Katniss watched him for a second with a scowl and then shook his head. "You know they look like they're going to drop dead any minute, yeah?"

"They're survivors." he protested defensively.

She tossed him a doubtful look but she also helped him carry the cage back to the Village.

The birds _were _in bad shape and Haymitch knew absolutely nothing about geese except that they were good at feeding themselves – which was probably better for them. Still, the gander stopped flapping his wings at him after a few days and the geese stopped being skittish and before he knew how, he had built a pen for them and sat in his backyard amongst them, watching them for hours with a drink in his hand. They were never really aggressive around him, not like they were with the kids or wandering neighbors. He was part of the flock.

They made him think of his brother but it wasn't as painful as he had expected it to be. It was bittersweet but a little soothing at the same time. He didn't feel the urge to drink himself to a stupor because of the reminder and he didn't feel like destroying everything in a drunken rage. He wondered if that meant he had finally put his family to rest. He wondered if that was what peace actually felt like.

With space, clean water, some hay and proper food, the gaggle of geese thrived. Of course, Haymitch was terrible at remembering to pick up the eggs so, before long, there were goslings all over the backyard following him around like ducks in a row. They honked all day long, the noise drowning the suffocating silence in his tomb of a house.

The noise actually drew the few remaining families in the Village to hurry back into their new houses in town.

Katniss leaned over the fence one morning and contemplated the gaggle before shaking her head. "You couldn't get a dog like a normal person?"

"Says the girl with the psycho cat." he retorted.

"Not my cat." she growled.

He regretted the gibe when she stormed away but still addressed the goose that was staring straight at him. It was the prettiest one. The tips of her wings were a pearly shade of grey that matched the ring of soft grey feathers around her neck. It made him think of a necklace, which in turn, had made him nickname that particular bird _Trinket_ – never within the kid's earshot though.

"Don't mind her, sweetheart…" he cajoled. "You're much better than a dog."

She was also not as good as her namesake but… He had to make do.

°O°O°O°O°

Summer was a cold rainy affair that the occasional ray of sunshine didn't make any more cheerful. It dragged by slowly, cementing for good what most Capitol citizens had already figured out: the world was now a very different place.

Without the Games people were bereft, bored, and bereft bored people who had just been more or less placidly invaded weren't good for business – or so, Effie figured, the government thought. Several reality shows came out that summer and as disdainful as she was of them, Effie joined the masses in watching secondhand celebrities battling in baking contests or insipid runway projects or people willingly trapping themselves in houses and being eliminated one after the other in hope of being the next famous thing. There was no real stakes and while she enjoyed the reprieve of watching children and loved ones fighting to the death, she also found the whole trend stupid and couldn't believe Plutarch was producing dozens of those shows.

Like the rest of the city, she didn't really know what to do with herself though, so she watched.

There were no parties, that summer. No glittering dresses, no towering high heels, no army of suitors fighting to take her out, no sponsors to swindle money from, no tributes to root for… She was just as bereft as the rest of her fellow citizens if not even more.

She had no purpose.

She hated her job.

She hated her life.

She convinced herself to go to the beach once on a warm afternoon – or what passed for the beach in the city, which meant the huge water tank just outside the Capitol had been converted into a swimming area of sort, complete with fake sand and fake palm trees – but she couldn't convince herself to shed her dress. She didn't fill her bathing suit as well as she once did and there were the scars to take into account and people were already staring because of her washed out pink hair. Or because they knew who she was.

It was funny how quickly you could get used to insults and sneers.

She had gone from being the most adored woman in the Capitol to being the most hated.

By the time a victor would usually have been crowned, Effie had closed herself off in her apartment and spent most of her time turning the pages of the old photo albums she had been able to save. She watched her younger self in pretty dresses and brightly colored wigs and, for the first time, she wondered if her mother had been right all those years earlier, if she would have been happier marrying one of the older wealthy men on the pictures. She wouldn't have been involved in the Games, she would have been learning to live in this new world like everyone else instead of just surviving in it, she might have had children of her own…

She paused on a picture of her fifteen year-old self hanging on to Seneca's arm. Seneca had been caught mid-laugh. They would have made a lovely couple despite his sexual preferences. She should have married him. They could have had a discreet arrangement to seek elsewhere what they wouldn't have been able to find in the marital bed. They could have been happy. At the very least, they had respected each other and that was a better foundation to marriage than most. She should have married him. Instead, she had sentenced him to death.

She retraced his features on the glossy paper and, for the first time since his so-called suicide, she let herself cry. It had been too dangerous at the time to grieve properly but now… Now she dearly missed her childhood friend.

She cried until she didn't have any tear left. She cried until she wasn't sobbing for Seneca but for everything else. The parties she wasn't invited to, the lack of money, the loss of her fame, the nightmares, the fear that wouldn't release its grip on her stomach, the loneliness that grew worse every day…

She called the children when it became too difficult to bear, forced a cheer in her voice and pretended everything was fine, recounted imaginary parties and events, talked about nonexistent dates, painted her job in an exciting way… She sensed the doubt in Peeta's voice but the boy never pushed. It was better than Katniss' indifferent tone.

On and on the summer dragged, up until the day her boss groped her, mistaking her desperate need to keep her job for an invite. She slapped him and quitted. If she was going to fall so low as to sell herself for money, it would be on her own terms and certainly not for such a cheap salary.

The lack of an income was problematic, of course, and if possible her quality of life suffered even more. She had to give up the pills and the withdrawal was just as painful and sickening as she remembered it being. She had to give up TV too but that wasn't so bad given the drivel that was always on. She took loans here and there from former family friends and acquaintances, using her father's name and his business empire as guarantees… He must have known by then, his business associates must have reached out to tell him his daughter was begging for money left and right, but he never sought her out. She went by the house once, driven by despair and the urge to find some familiar surroundings, but the butler told her nobody was home. She glimpsed her mother spying behind a curtain on her way out.

She could barely keep herself afloat.

At that point, she wasn't sure she even cared.

"_Haymitch adopted geese."_ Peeta informed her one day, over the phone. "_They make such a racket it's driving us crazy… He loves them though so we're not complaining too much. You should see him with the goslings…"_

She had some troubles picturing Haymitch doing something productive like raising geese. Although, knowing him, he was probably letting them run loose in the yard and only remembered to take care of them once in a blue moon. Still, she had never known him to have pets before. He used to sneer at her old Persian cat on the rare times he had visited her apartment a decade or so earlier. Then again, he was probably not a cat person.

"_I think he's lonely." _the boy added when she didn't answer quickly enough. "_It might be good if you… We'd love you to visit, you know?"_

There was a hushed protest somewhere behind Peeta and she supposed Katniss had something to say to that casual invitation.

"Did I tell you about my new boyfriend?" she lied as cheerfully as she could.

Peeta sighed.

Once she had hung up, she crawled into bed, buried her face in her pillow and told herself she _hadn't_ splashed some drops of whiskey on it just so it would smell like Haymitch, that it was just an accident. She wasn't _that _pathetic.

* * *

**Fall**

* * *

When the leaves started falling from the trees in his backyard, the children told him that they were moving in together.

He wasn't really surprised. He didn't think Peeta had slept in his own house in a whole month – not that he was spying but he liked keeping an eye on things when his kids were concerned.

They toasted to that – him with liquor, the kids with water – and it was a good night. At least until they went home hand in hand and he was left alone in his very silent house.

He tried not to be too bitter over the kids' happiness because they deserve it but it was hard not to be at least a little bit jealous. Nobody would have accused them of being lovey-dovey but there was a new dimension to their relationship: an easy tenderness that every move, look and smile betrayed. They were in love – properly this time – and while it was good to see, it made him feel extremely lonely. Always the third wheel.

Not only that but he was just a man and he was starting to crave some physical companionship. His eyes lingered on pretty women, he flirted here and there when he knew it was harmless and it wouldn't lead to anything, just to prove to himself he still had game, and he seriously considered a visit to the less than reputable _house _that had opened at the very end of the new Seam.

Every time the urge was too great, he drowned it in liquor and soppy hand jobs that left him wanting more. Problem was, he wasn't after just any other woman. He wanted a very specific one. He _craved_ her smell, her taste, the softness of her skin, her soft moans and her cries of abandon, the salacious whispers in his ear and the wicked deftness of her fingers…

He didn't think he was being too obviously horny but he must have turned on a pretty woman one time too many in the street because one evening at dinner, Peeta cleared his throat while passing him a plate of stew and completely ignored the dark warning look Katniss was tossing him. Haymitch knew he wasn't going to like whatever the boy had to say at that look alone, because if she was bothering to care then it must have been _bad, _and he tossed the boy a look of his own.

Not that it had ever stopped Peeta from speaking his mind.

"Do you know Sonya?" the boy asked very casually.

Haymitch dug his fork in his stew with a sharp glare. "Eat your food, kid."

"She works a booth at the market every Sunday." Peeta awkwardly insisted. "The flowers one? She has red hair?" There was a short struggle under the table and Haymitch figured Katniss was trying to kick the boy into silence but Peeta was having none of it and was avoiding her foot. "She asked about you the other day."

Fact was, he knew Sonya. He had flirted with her one time or two just because she was pretty and it was easy to get a laugh out of her. She was also ten years younger and her attention had flattered him. He had never really been interested though. For obvious reasons.

"Eat. Your. Food." he repeated while chewing.

He tried to shovel as many forkfuls as possible in his mouth before he really _had _to flee the children's house in a wrathful exit. Possibly for a week or so. Enough time for the boy to get whatever new project this was out of his head.

"She asked if you had someone." Peeta added. "So I told her…"

"I hope for your sake you told her _shit_." he snapped, slamming his fork back on the table. "'Cause who I _fuck_'s my business and I'd thank you to stay out of it."

The boy stared at him, gaping.

Katniss just rolled her eyes as if she had known all along it would end up this way.

Neither of them made a move to stop him when he stormed out of their kitchen. Peeta because he was too shocked by the outburst, Katniss because she knew better than to follow.

He wasn't really surprised that the girl made an appearance an hour or so later though, time enough for him to calm down a little. He had been drinking on the porch, watching his geese and the stars in turn, when she dropped next to him on the stairs.

"He's worried about you." she said, straight to the point.

"I don't need a wingman." he grumbled. "I can still pick my own birds, thank you very much. Can _pluck_ them too. Tell him that before he starts buying me pills so I can get it up."

She wrinkled her nose, flushing red. "_Gross. _And I don't think he meant it like _that_. He was trying to find you someone like… _To date_. You know."

Her little speech ended in an almost indecipherable mumble. _Awkward_.

"I already have someone." he snapped before he could think better of it.

She lifted her eyebrows in surprise, studying him in the relative darkness of fall's early evening. "Do you keep a secret crazy wife in your attic?"

She asked it with some weariness, as if she wouldn't have put it past him to have been hiding a spouse somewhere all along. He should have been offended. _Perhaps_. Hadn't he done _just_ that, in a way?

He took a sip of his liquor, kept his eyes on his birds… "I'm doing fine, sweetheart. Don't worry about me. Never thought I would get the happy ending anyway. Don't deserve one."

She leaned against his side with a sigh, resting her head on his shoulder. "You said I'd never deserve Peeta."

"I say a lot of _shit_." he pointed out, taking another swing of his bottle.

"Yeah." She snorted. "Like when you say you don't deserve to be happy. If _I_ do, _you_ do." He wasn't sure it worked that way but he humored her by propping his cheek on her head. Damn, but he loved that kid. "So… Where do you keep your crazy wife if it's not in the attic?" she joked after a minute.

He was silent for a moment, weighted his options. It would have been easier to let sleeping lions lie, to keep lying, denying, pretending it had never happened… But he was tired of the lies and the pretences.

"In the Capitol." he confessed, his voice rough and raw.

She leaned back to shoot him a surprised confused look. "You have a Capitol girlfriend?"

He laughed in spite of everything. Trust Katniss to miss the glaring signs Peeta had probably noticed from miles away.

The shock faded quickly from her face though, turned into a frown…

A part of him was curious to see if she would work it out or if she would think he wasn't so different from Brutus and the likes who had always had affairs in the city – sometimes public, sometimes private – independently of the prostitution business. There had been more than one victor with a genuine Capitol lover. Most of them simply had the good sense of hiding it. There had been more than one Capitol kid with an "uncle" of a victor too.

"How long?" she asked petulantly, as if she was offended he had been keeping it from her.

He sighed, rubbed his face… "A decade or so."

And there it was again, the shock on her face. She made a visible effort to swallow it. "So… What happened?"

"Told you on the way back here, didn't I?" He snorted bitterly and took a slow mouthful of liquor. "Nobody could find a place for me in the Capitol."

It was still a sore point how easily the rebels had swept him aside in the wake of the victory, how he had been dismissed from any possible government position. He wasn't sure he would have enjoyed politics but he had been eager to try and make the country a better place. He could have gotten over it more easily if…

"She dumped you?" she clarified, apparently outraged on his behalf.

"She has her reasons." He shrugged it off. "They're not bad reasons."

Grey eyes tracked his every move as her face hardened with realization. "You love her."

He shuddered at that word. _Still_. He knew he felt it. He _knew_. But that word… He wondered if it would have been different had he been able to control that instinctive response, to actually _express _his feelings in _that _way, if it would have been enough of a trump card that Effie would have followed him.

He waved his hand, dismissing that line of conversation. "You've heard from anyone lately?"

It was fishing, of course, and he had to sit through a five minutes recount of whatever Johanna was up to in Four before she finally got around to tell him about their former escort. It was Peeta who kept in touch, he knew, Katniss wasn't as hostile as she had been in the past but she wasn't exactly _fond _of her either.

"Oh, and Peeta invited her but she can't come 'cause she has a new boyfriend." the girl added, as an afterthought. "It's for the best though. Can you imagine Effie coming here for a vacation? She would complain all day long that her shoes are covered in mud…"

She chuckled at her own joke but Haymitch only took another long gulp of liquor.

Could he picture her in Twelve? No. Yes. He wasn't sure.

Could he picture her with a new boyfriend? Only too well. It was almost painful enough to make him reconsider taking Sonya up on her offer.

°O°O°O°O°

Effie's head hurt all the time.

She didn't need a professional's opinion to know what the problem was: she wasn't eating enough and she drank and smoked too much. She was spiraling into a free fall that would only end up with a spectacular crash. She was aware of it.

She had taken to avoiding her landlord at all cost, even when he slammed his fist on the door and threatened to call the Peacekeepers on her for hours. She had thought about suggesting a more… _personal_ arrangement until she could find another job – sex for favors was nothing she hadn't done before – but the idea of touching anyone in that way disgusted her. She had had no problem having sex with Haymitch after the war so she wasn't sure what the problem was now. Maybe that he _wasn't_ Haymitch…

Her landlord wasn't the only one who was after her nonexistent money. Every day there were more bills, more final demands for loans to be paid back… She was dreading the yellow envelopes more than she did the usual threat letters now.

She had tried to find another job but nobody wanted to hire her. Not only because of who she was but because one look at her was enough to see she wasn't fit. She didn't have enough make-up to properly hide the dark rings under her eyes or the unhealthy pallor of her skin.

The pink dye had faded back into her natural blond color except for the very tips of her hair where it had turned an odd unattractive tinge of rusty red. She wasn't sure who the ghost watching her back in the mirror was so she tried not to look.

She was drowning.

She was at the end of her rope.

Or so she thought.

She came back from a trip to the grocery store she hadn't been able to put off any longer one day to find the locks on her front door had been changed. Her suitcase had been dumped in the corridor.

Her heart beating fast, she quickly checked that everything essential was accounted for. She didn't have anything left worth stealing but she needed her papers if nothing else. Everything had been crammed in her suitcase: her clothes, her photo albums, her papers, the impressive amount of bills… The suitcase looked ready to burst at the seams.

She was tempted to knock on the door, to go find her landlord and _beg_… She couldn't find the energy for it.

The old Effie would never have accepted her fate so placidly.

The new broken Effie was so tired of fighting… So tired…

She grabbed her suitcase and left the building and she walked around the city until she found herself on the newly rebuilt City Circle. There was a monstrously huge statue in the middle of it now, children reaching to the sky. A tribute or so she had been told – personally she found it tacky . She sat down on the stone rows of seats and she lit herself a cigarette, ignoring the strange looks she was getting. She could see the City Center from there as well as the Presidential Mansion.

This time of year, usually, preparations for the Tour would be in full swing.

The previous year she had been planning outfits, coordinating with Districts' mayors and kept tabs on the Gamemakers' moves.

No…

It hadn't been the previous year, had it? The previous year she had been… Two years then. Two years since she had been planning her victors' Victory Tour. Two years… The last year had been swallowed in terror and pain. Time lost forever, stolen from her…

Sitting there, watching monuments of her past, she realized she didn't know who she was outside of being an escort, outside of being a sex symbol…

She wasn't quite sure why her feet took her home because she already knew she wouldn't be welcomed, she already knew _home _had only ever been a word to design her parents' house and not an actual feeling. She was out of options though and, surely, that would be enough for her mother to relent, to stop being so angry Effie had ruined her social life and her reputation. Surely…

The butler wouldn't let her in.

Not even once she had explained she was now homeless loud enough for her mother and her sister to hear.

Not even when she started crying and _begged _to be allowed to speak to her father because she was certain _he _wouldn't leave her out on the streets. He had allowed her to use him as a guarantee for her loans after all… He _would _help her now…

The door was slammed shut on her face and she stared at it for several seconds, her ears ringing, more shocked than she ought to have been. She took a deep breath around the lump in her throat, wiped her wet cheeks, bit down on her bottom lip to control her frayed emotions and then turned around, dragging her sad heavy suitcase behind her.

The door opened when she was at the gate and she glanced over her shoulder, _hoping_…

But it was just the butler and all he did was hand her some money. She glimpsed her mother's frame walking up the stairs through the open door.

She took the money because she couldn't afford not to but a part of her burned with the urge to toss it back at her mother's face. Family should never turn their back on each other. Never.

She knew one thing for certain: if she called Haymitch or one of the children now, if she told them she needed help, they would be there in a flash. Even Katniss.

She was tired. So tired.

Her feet hurt by the time she made her way to the train station. It was packed and a lot busier than it used to be. She spent the money her mother had given her on the cheapest ticket to Twelve, a sandwich and cigarettes. She forced herself to eat if only to quell the nausea and the headache. She forced herself not to second guess when she stepped on the train too.

What was left for her in the city? If she wasn't welcome in Twelve… If Haymitch slammed the door in her face like he had a right to…

But he wouldn't.

She already knew he wouldn't.

She let herself fall asleep somewhere near Two and woke up screaming while the train rushed through Ten. A woman switched seats to get far away from her, children pointed at her, people watched her wearily… She pressed her hands against her face for a moment, wished she could have a smoke…

It was a long trip with several connections. It took three days before landscapes gave way to familiar sceneries and the train was empty by the time it lolled its way into Twelve's little station. It was late and the place was deserted save from a few men who were unloading grates of what she supposed to be supplies. She was the only passenger to get off and she could barely stand on her legs.

She was exhausted, famished, thirsty and she was fairly sure she smelled terrible.

Dragging her suitcase behind her on the unpaved streets was a nightmare. It was too heavy and she contemplated the thought of just leaving it behind a few times, maybe hide it somewhere until she could come back for it… And yet she kept going, getting turned around a few times because Twelve wasn't at all like she remembered it. Like the Capitol, the streets weren't in the same place, buildings were brand new, and it was only too easy to get lost.

It was fully dark by the time she managed to locate the slope that led to the Victors Village and the whole place seemed asleep. She stopped not too far from Katniss' old house, caught a glimpse of the children behind their curtains…

She had missed them _so badly_…

The feeling hurt her. She hadn't realized just _how much _she had been missing them while feeling miserable for herself in her little apartment.

She pushed on, up and up the now not so deserted streets. Windows were lit in some houses and she remembered Peeta saying some people were staying in the Village now, either until their own houses were finished or for good…

The lights were on in Haymitch's living-room.

Her heart was beating fast, her blood was rushing to her ears, her fingers were prickling with the beginning of the panic attack she was desperately trying to control… What was the worst that could happen? He would kick her out? Well then… She would just sit down on the curb and… _Peeta _would never leave her without a roof over her head. Perhaps he would be willing to lend his old house until she got back on her feet, whenever _that _might be… She would ask him. _Or_ she would finally accept this new world didn't need nor want an escort in it and…

She approached the house, badly startling when a chorus of honking echoed from the backyard. _Geese_, she reminded herself, _just the geese_. She was barely aware of knocking on the door, barely aware that she did it three times… Her heart was racing so badly…

She heard the irritated shout from inside though, she also heard the heavy stomping. "What the _fuck_ do you want at this…"

The door was yanked open and there he stood, his lips parted for a sentence he didn't finish, bare-chested, barefoot, frayed sweatpants hanging low on his hips and the sight was so familiar she started crying in sheer relief because _this_, right there, was _home_. A lot more than her parents' house or the beloved apartment the government had ripped from her.

"Effie…" he breathed out, half incredulous and half awed.

"I…" she stuttered, tears falling freely on her cheeks. "I know I should have called but…"

"Effie." he said again, more firmly this time. There was relief in his voice when he reached for her shoulder. His finger only brushed the old wool of her coat before she tossed herself at him, holding on to his neck and his waist for dear life, sobbing her heart out. He immediately embraced her back, coiling a hand at the base of her nape and squeezing softly. "Effie… Effie…"

He repeated her name again and again like it was a magical spell. She couldn't think past this moment. The smell of him… She had forgotten what safety smelt like, _felt_ like…

"Breathe." he commanded suddenly, his hand gently running up and down her back. "Sweetheart, breathe…"

She tried to do just that, gulping in irregular breaths of air, waiting for the panic to recede… He tugged her inside, closed the door… She wouldn't let go of him.

"I need… I need a place to stay…" she finally managed to stutter.

"Sure, yeah." he said at once.

So easily.

It made her cry harder.

He pressed a tentative kiss on her head and, when she didn't push him away, didn't protest, a firmer one on the side of her neck. "Wanna tell me what's going on? Cause you're freaking me out a little, sweetheart."

"I can't…" She shook her head, heaving in sharp breaths… "I can't _do it_ anymore."

She wasn't sure exactly what she meant – or maybe she knew it too well – but Haymitch's body went rigid against her. He had spent more than half his life around victors. He knew what despair sounded like.

"Come on, sweetheart… Come in. You're freezing." He tugged her further inside the house, into the kitchen. "Let's get you something warm to drink and maybe something to eat 'cause I can feel your every bone… You're gonna feel better after you've got something in your belly."

It wouldn't be that easy, she knew, but right then the perspective of something warm to eat and drink and of a bed to stay for the night was heavenly. The thought that she wouldn't have to worry about where she would spend the next night…

She collapsed on a kitchen chair, buried her face in her hands to try and get a _bloody _grip on the panic still coursing through her veins…

She was vaguely aware Haymitch was moving around the kitchen, vaguely aware he eased her coat off her shoulders, vaguely aware he tentatively placed his hands there afterward and rubbed the tension away… The massage felt good even if she wasn't entirely happy with such a large shape looming behind her. She relaxed and, soon, she was clutching a mug of tea with one hand while devouring a plate of leftover turkey with the other. She was too hungry to show much decorum and she knew she must have looked a frightening sight almost _inhaling _that food.

"Easy." he said at some point, placing his hand on her wrist. "You're gonna make yourself sick. There's plenty more. Just… Go slow."

Her stomach was so unused to rich meals now that she felt full long before she even finished the plate. She pushed it away before temptation became too much and she forced herself to swallow it anyway and wrapped both hands around her mug of tea, keeping her eyes riveted to the dark liquid because it was easier than meeting Haymitch's gaze.

She knew how she looked.

"Tell me." he requested.

And so she closed her eyes and she did. She told him everything, beginning with how angry she had been when he had left and finishing with her mother's butler slamming the door shut in her face. She told him about the nightmares, about the fear that wouldn't go away, about the government seizing her assets as soon as she had been defenseless without the last of her victors, about the leering boss, about the debts, about how she had been so stupid not to follow him when he had asked, about regretting letting her pride rule her head and her heart…

He was good enough not to ask if the only reason she had come was because she was desperate.

Or maybe he was just desperate enough himself to accept it anyway.

"I can't do it anymore." she repeated once she was done, her voice a mere whisper.

"We're gonna figure everything out." he promised. "It's gonna be fine. You need to sleep. You can barely sit up. I'm gonna get the guest room ready for you, yeah? Just need clean sheets… I know I've got some somewhere… Did the laundry not long ago… A few days… A week at most. They're gonna be clean, I promise."

He looked flustered as if he really expected her to care about the state of his sheets after what she had just confessed.

"Can I sleep with you?" she asked.

He froze at that, searched her eyes, took pain to sound detached when he finally answered… "If you want, yeah."

"There will be nightmares." she warned.

He lifted his eyebrows, a sad smirk stretching his lips. "Forgot who you're talking to? I'm an expert in nightmares."

It didn't take much more for him to coax her up the stairs and into his bedroom. He offered to change the sheets again but she was far too tired to care. Truth be told, she liked that the sheets smelt so strongly of him. She shed her dress, kicked her shoes and curled up under the duvet in her underwear without a second thought. She was asleep before her head touched the pillow.

She woke up gasping once but a strong arm wrapped itself around her waist and tugged her against a warm chest.

"It's alright, sweetheart. I've got you. You're safe." he murmured in her ear.

He didn't sound the slightest bit sleepy and she briefly wondered if he had slept at all but then she dozed off again.

If she had more nightmares, she didn't remember when she finally woke up for good. It took her a whole minute to remember everything and she sank back against his pillow, feeling the fog lift a little from her mind. She was alone in the bedroom, the curtains had been drawn open and the room was bathed in pale sunlight. Her suitcase was open in one corner and she didn't understand why he had done that until she rummaged through it for some clean clothes and realized the bills and final notices were all missing.

Her throat closed and her heart beat faster. She didn't want to be indebted to _him _of all people. She didn't want him to wonder if she had come to him because she needed his money or…

She took a shower, moved that he had clearly anticipated and left out clean towels for her, lingering under the hot water because she had been taking cold showers for months. Warm water cost money. She wondered if he would mind if she took a bath at some point…

She felt better when she finally wandered downstairs in search of Haymitch, maybe not quite herself yet but at least more human than shell.

She found him sprawled on his couch with a book, a glass of liquor dangling from his fingers. He placed both down as soon as he saw her lurking on the threshold. The smile that stretched his lips was immediate and genuine if a little mocking. "I was starting to wonder if you were gonna sleep until winter…"

"Is it late?" she asked, trying not to feel too awkward as she made her way to the couch. "I have not slept through the night in a while."

"Through the night…" he repeated slowly. "Sweetheart, you've been asleep for more than twenty-four hours." She gaped at him and he shrugged. "Got a few nightmares now and then but I could tell you weren't really awake. Thought it was better to let you sleep, you clearly needed the rest, but I _was_ starting to get a little worried."

If she had slept as long as he claimed, it explained why she felt so refreshed.

She licked her lips, averting her eyes. "You took my…"

"Don't worry about the money." he cut her off. Obviously, he knew her enough to know she wasn't going to like him paying off her debts. "You can pay me back later, yeah? I've got more than enough."

"Still…" she protested.

"I want you to get better." he growled. "Now you can get better without worrying about stupid stuff."

He hadn't seemed like _stupid stuff _when she had been in the city but, truth be told, now that she was there with him, it did seem trivial. She had never needed to concern herself with money before and, as independent as she liked to be, a part of her was happy to be able to go back to _not _worrying about it.

She tentatively leaned against his side only to more openly snuggle against him when he readily opened his arms.

"I have missed you…" she breathed out. "So much…"

He dropped a kiss on her shoulder, another one on her cheek… "Back at you, Princess. Back at you…"

* * *

**Winter**

* * *

Winter had always been Haymitch's favorite season. He loved the snow. He loved the blanket of white that ended up covering everything in sight. He loved the firelight and the crunchy sound of frost under his boots.

It turned out he also loved snuggling with a hot blonde under a pile of blankets while the blizzard raged outside…

"It is absolutely too cold in this place." Effie muttered from under all the blankets she had been able to unearth in his house.

He curled tighter around her and nuzzled her nape. Truth be told, he was almost too hot. It was positively toasty in the bed and if it had been left to him, he would have ducked two or three blankets but, in this like in almost everything else since she had showed up, he humored her.

He wanted to keep her.

Sometimes, on his bad days, he was scared he wanted to keep her more than she wanted to stay.

His bad days hadn't magically gone away but there were admittedly less of them now. Perhaps because she had so many bad days of her own he didn't have time to feel sorry for himself when she needed him to keep her from drowning into the bad memories.

She had spent so long ignoring her trauma, pretending it couldn't affect her, hiding from it instead of confronting it that it had taken a turn for the worse in her first few weeks in Twelve. She had refused to leave the house at first, had suffered from so many panic attacks and flashbacks Haymitch had been at a loss…

It had taken _weeks _for her to finally settle down a little, to stop clinging to him in fright at night, to stop hyperventilating every time she was startled by a loud noise, to stop thinking Peacekeepers would break down the door and take her away… On that front, he supposed the government taking her apartment hadn't helped – and he had had words with Plutarch about that, _many _words, none of them pleasant – but she was finally accepting his promises that he would _kill _anyone who tried to hurt her again, regardless of if they had a warrant or not.

She was getting better. She lost herself in her own headspace less and less. She was more engaged with reality. She went outside to the town – sometimes even by herself. She had made a couple of friends – unsurprisingly, the woman who owned the clothes shop now regularly came over for tea. She smothered the children with her mothering, often prompting Katniss to send him exasperated looks over the dinner table.

He wouldn't have said she was back to normal because he knew for a fact there was no _normal _to find after the kind of ordeal she had been through but she had found a balance and that was the best one could hope for.

"How can you be cold? I'm _fucking _sweating." he complained.

He wasn't just sweating, he was soaked under the armpits and at the small of his back. There were too many blankets piled on the bed, her body was warm and not only was a fire lit downstairs but he had pushed up the old heater as far as it could go without the boiler blowing up so she would be comfortable. Nobody could have said the house was _cold_.

"Take off your shirt then." she hummed.

A part of him felt a thrill at the thought of _finally _lying with her without clothes on – even if it was only the top part – but he didn't rush to follow her suggestion.

"I've just got boxers, not pants." he warned, even though she could probably feel his bare thighs against the back of hers.

He had been very careful not to push her on any intimate front. He slept in sweatpants and shirts even though he usually preferred to sleep naked – she was aware of that and she had never commented before so he had decided putting clothes on was the right thing to do – and he was always diligent in keeping from her any hint of arousal. He angled his hips away when he woke up hard in the morning and the few hesitant kisses they had shared since she had come to Twelve had been mostly chaste and innocent.

"Well…" She wriggled away from him and he regretfully let her. She turned around, slowed by the heavy layers of blankets, and peered at him in the relative darkness of the bedroom. "Perhaps you should take them off too."

His heart started hammering, his body understanding what she was getting at a second before his brain caught up. He didn't move though, simply studied her face, noticing the flash of uncertainty that passed over her features when he didn't move at once…

She averted her eyes and cleared her throat. "Unless you do not wish to, of course."

He reached out, brushed his fingertips along the length of her jaw tentatively… He was never sure when she would flinch at his contact. She had been getting better but in the beginning…

"You want me naked, sweetheart?" he asked.

It was the only tactful euphemism he could come up with. Because he was pretty certain if he got naked, stuff would happen.

She stared at him for a long time and then licked her lips. His grey eyes darted to her mouth.

"Do you still want me? Like _that_, I mean." she whispered. "You have not… You have not seemed very interested and…"

"You're kidding me, yeah?" he scoffed, meeting her gaze again. The pained look on her face told him she _wasn't_. "I was just… I was giving you some space."

She watched him for a moment longer and then sat up. She shivered once she was free from her nest of blankets but she didn't flinch once when she grabbed her nightgown and slipped it over her head. Haymitch was hard in a matter of seconds. He let himself look his full at her breasts, her stomach, the body he had worshipped more times than he could count…

"I had enough space." she said. She grabbed his hand and lifted it up to her breast. "I need you now."

The nervousness would have been easy to miss for someone who didn't know her as well as he did.

"Are you sure?"

It was the first time he had ever asked her and it irritated her.

"Of course, I am sure." she huffed. "But if you do not…"

Her sentence ended in a small shriek that turned into laughter when he tugged her to him, coaxed her into straddling him…

Yes…

Winter was Haymitch's favorite season. All the more so when he had a hot blond in his bed.

°O°O°O°O°

Winter had never been Effie's cup of tea and, on the rare few times she had been forced to come to Twelve for the Tour, she remembered wondering how anyone could survive something that _harsh_. Winter in the Capitol was mild at best. Fake snow, fake ice, fake everything.

Twelve was the real deal.

She had never even known snow storms were a real thing before she had moved to Twelve.

It had been three days so far since they had been cut off from the world and the storm showed no sign of abating.

"Do you think the children are alright?" she asked as she carefully carried two mugs full of hot chocolate in the living-room.

She smiled when she caught sight of Haymitch crouching next to the fireplace with his still fluffy hair. She had insisted on blowing it dry after their shower so he wouldn't catch a cold and it looked far more puffy than usual – although that might have been the shampoo she had rubbed on his head while he was busy kissing every inch of her stomach. He glanced at her, a smirk on his lip, and added a log to the fire.

He shrugged. "They're used to it. They'll be fine."

His eyes did their own inspection, the smirk deepening at the long legs poking from under one of his long-sleeved shirts. Or maybe it was the mustard woolen socks she had borrowed from his drawer and pulled up to her knees.

Just at the way he shifted she knew he wanted her again.

They had spent the last two days doing little more than getting physically reacquainted with each other.

He replaced the grate and sat down on the couch, accepting the mug of chocolate and slowly blowing on it to chase the steam. She sat down next to him and plopped her feet on his lap, smiling when he immediately wrapped his free hand around her ankle only to slowly ran it over her shin.

She grabbed her notepad and her pen, half-intending to doodle some new dresses – a hobby she had given up at some point and had recently taken up again with the half-cooked project of settling down as a seamstress – but ended up leaving them untouched on her lap. Watching Haymitch was far more appealing.

Apparently, watching her was far more appealing than his book too.

She smiled and he chuckled, a little embarrassed.

"We're acting like kids who just had their first _fuck_, you realize." he mocked.

"Language." she chided, her grin widening. "It does feel new though, doesn't it?"

Which was weird because they had been sleeping together for more than a decade by that point.

His face softened. "First _fuck_ of the rest of our lives."

She couldn't stop herself from laughing and she was shocked at how genuinely happy it sounded. "How romantic."

"You know me…" he teased. "I'm always all about the romance."

"For sure." she humored him, taking her feet off his lap so she could straddle his thighs. He safely relocated his mug to the floor before wrapping his arms around her waist. "Will you take me ice skating when that storm finally stops? Katniss said there is a lake not too far where you can skate…"

"Been ages since I did that…" he commented and then shrugged. "Sure, yeah. If the ice's thick enough."

He leaned in and kissed her and she let him deepen it until he lied her down on the couch and nestled between her legs.

There would be no Victory Tour to follow on TV that winter but there would be ice skating and snowballs fights and a lot hot chocolate shared with the children around a fireplace.

There would no Reaping in spring but there would be long strolls around the green meadow and picnics and the adoption of a stray tabby cat Haymitch pretended to hate but secretly loved because it put a smile on Effie's face.

There would be no Games that summer but there would be swimming in the lake and long evenings on the porch and a trip to Four that would start a traditional yearly visit.

There would no excitement about the Tour that fall but there would be a new white swing seat on the porch and crispy apple pies and an unplanned toasting on a late night.

Seasons would waltz and there would be no more Games but there would be love and happiness and nothing would be quite perfect because neither Haymitch nor Effie were but that would be alright because perfection was overrated anyway.

* * *

_It was huuuuuge! I hope you liked it! Let me know your thoughts! Happy hayffie week! May the odds be ever in your favor!_


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